{"id":174997,"date":"2026-03-02T14:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T14:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/174997\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T14:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T14:14:15","slug":"randy-fine-loses-an-endorsement-florida-may-gain-a-state-bird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/174997\/","title":{"rendered":"Randy Fine loses an endorsement. Florida may gain a state bird"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today we have an edition of the \u201cFollow-up Files\u201d that looks at the University of Florida\u2019s law school dean\u2019s defense of putting Florida\u2019s attorney general <\/a>on her school\u2019s payroll and an attempt to settle Florida\u2019s ridiculously long-running debate over our state bird.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But first, let\u2019s start with U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, who had a not-so-fine day last week when he lost the support and endorsement of a high-profile figure in his Volusia County-based district \u2014 Sheriff Mike Chitwood.<\/p>\n

Through the years, Fine\u2019s antics have ranged from buffoonish to boorish. He once threatened to shut down UCF. He called a female school board member a \u201cwhore.\u201d And he threatened to defund Special Olympics Florida<\/a> for the cardinal sin of not inviting him to a fundraising party at the local Chick-fil-A. (Gee, can you imagine why anyone might not want Randy at their party?)<\/p>\n

Anyway, most everyone knows the Republican legislator-turned-congressman revels in division. But a few weeks ago, Fine upped his divisive ante by going after both Muslims and Palestinians. A number of conservative pundits called him out. But I wondered whether any of the public officials in Florida who\u2019d previously indulged or ignored Fine\u2019s history of demeaning behavior would finally say: Enough.<\/p>\n

Well, the next day, one did. \u201cI cannot endorse wishing for kids in Gaza to starve, or for Muslim American citizens to be expelled from the U.S.,\u201d Chitwood wrote in a highly-viewed and shared Facebook post.<\/p>\n

Chitwood said he appreciates the work Fine has done on behalf of \u201cJewish neighbors, but as Sheriff I just can\u2019t turn a blind eye to the harm he\u2019s doing to our Muslim community.\u201d The sheriff signed off by stressing that Muslims in Florida are \u201cno less deserving of protection. They are our neighbors, business leaders, philanthropists, doctors, teachers and colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

The response was largely positive. But Chitwood, a famously fierce independent, said this past week he wasn\u2019t looking for reactions. This was about his core values, he said. \u201cI cannot support someone who wants to marginalize people based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.\u201d<\/p>\n

That seems like a pretty basic bar for being a decent human \u2014 yet sadly, also a bar many Florida elected officials can\u2019t seem to clear.<\/p>\n

A.G. attention<\/p>\n

Also last week, I penned a column about UF\u2019s decision to put Florida\u2019s inexperienced and unelected attorney general, James Uthmeier, on its faculty, paying him way more money than most adjunct professors receive \u2014 $100,000 a year to teach one class.<\/p>\n

Most adjuncts receive a fraction of that, including those who also hold public office. In fact, after I wrote that piece, I heard from quite a few of them \u2014 including a prosecutor, judge and state senator \u2014 all of whom confirmed they received about $3,000 for their services.<\/p>\n

The difference seems to be that they all viewed teaching as a way to give back to the legal community and future lawyers, rather than a way to pad their own pockets.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier, as you may recall, said he sought the extra $100k \u2014 on top of his base salary of $140,000 as A.G. \u2014 \u201cto keep the lights on and keep food on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was quite a claim in a state where the median household income is $77,735 and where some of the people who work directly for Uthmeier make as little as $43,000.<\/p>\n

Well, apparently the long-time interim dean at UF\u2019s Levin College of Law felt compelled to defend all this. In a a recording obtained by the Miami Herald, Dean Merritt McAlister acknowledged to skeptical faculty that Uthmeier\u2019s deal was \u201cdifferent.\u201d But she also said she thought it was a good one and insisted that nobody pressured her to start paying Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 hand-picked attorney general who previously served as DeSantis\u2019 chief of staff and campaign manager.<\/p>\n

McAlister said she made the decision on her own, concluding that it was \u201cin the best interest of the law school for a variety of reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giving a bird<\/p>\n

Lastly, let\u2019s talk turkey. Or rather scrub-jays and flamingos.<\/p>\n

For 25 years, Florida lawmakers have been talking about replacing our state bird, the northern mockingbird, with a bird that better represents the Sunshine State.<\/p>\n

The reasons are plentiful. The mockingbird isn\u2019t remotely unique to Florida. It nests everywhere from Mexico to Nova Scotia. Selecting the mockingbird as your state bird is like selecting Wawa as your signature small business. Meanwhile, the friendly little scrub-jay is the only bird native to Florida, and its habitats have long been threatened. This should be a no-brainer.<\/p>\n

Yet for more than two decades, Tallahassee lawmakers have repeatedly filed bird bills, debated them and then ultimately refused to pass them \u2014 in part because development interests don\u2019t want to honor a bird whose habitats sometimes get in the way of their desires to clear-cut land.<\/p>\n

The anti-scrub jay forces have also had a powerful ally in former NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer, who mounted an oddly intense campaign against the scrub-jay, once even suggesting that the friendly little bird\u2019s willingness to eat from human hands proved it had a \u201cwelfare mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeah, it was weird. But most GOP lawmakers in Tallahassee would walk off a cliff if the NRA told them to. So when Hammer made nutty claims, they\u2019d just nod in nonsensical agreement.<\/p>\n

Finally, though, legislators may have temporarily come to their senses. The Florida House recently voted 112-to-1 to make the flamingo our state bird and the scrub-jay the state songbird. (The one dissenting vote came from Rep. Alex Andrade, who said he promised Hammer years ago to never cross her on this issue.)<\/p>\n

While the House approved the change, the Senate has yet to act on SB 150. It should do so \u2014 and be done with it. Personally, I prefer the scrub-jay. But I get the commercial appeal of flamingos.<\/p>\n

Regardless, there are about 1,000 more pressing issues in this state. And the only thing more bird-brained than the fact that this state has debated this petty issue for 25 years would be debating it for another 25.<\/p>\n

Florida lawmakers keep flipping the scrub-jay the bird | Commentary<\/p>\n

\u00a92026 Orlando Sentinel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today we have an edition of the \u201cFollow-up Files\u201d that looks at the University of Florida\u2019s law school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,4260,82842,28873,9217,41830,72043,14619,82841,2512],"class_list":["post-174997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-james-uthmeier","tag-law-school-dean","tag-mike-chitwood","tag-randy-fine","tag-school-board-member","tag-special-olympics-florida","tag-state-bird","tag-state-legislator","tag-university-of-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}